Shopping people flat illustration By Barkova Nadya
Custom-made t-shirts are fairly trendy these days. More and more people have been turning to t-shirt printing as a way of creating custom apparel and many designers are now able to support themselves by selling their own unique statement t-shirts online. In order to create a top-selling t-shirt, one of the important things that you need is a unique font with a creative saying or quotation.
In such t-shirt designs, the typography is crucial. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of typefaces available, and your duty is to select the finest typeface for the job, organize it in a graphically acceptable manner, and ensure that your message is conveyed as effectively as possible. This is no easy task. To fully capture the audience’s attention, it must resonate with them.
Let’s take a look at some of the best fonts for t-shirt printing, including a mix of sans serif fonts, script fonts, and serif fonts that you can use to create designs, establish unique styles, and build your brand’s personality.
Top T-Shirt Fonts for Sports T-Shirt Designs
Designing a sports t-shirt is a lot like putting together a winning team on the field. It takes skill, strategy, team spirit, and a little bit of luck. If you’re looking to create an eye-catching and stylish design that will have fans cheering from the stands, consider these popular fonts:
1. Hitch Route
Hitch Route is a vintage typeface with a modern twist, and it’s jam-packed with numerous styles, ligatures, and stylistic alternates, making it simple to give your projects their own personality. It’s extremely adaptable, making it ideal for sports logos, branding, posters, fashion design, magazine headlines, and labels, among other things.
2. Infield
Infield is a modern and edgy sports font family that comes in four different creative styles to provide you more options in your design process. With its bold and confident appearance, it’s ideal for sports logos, branding, posters, and clothes design. Infield Rough’s uppercase and lowercase vintage characters have different renderings to give authenticity and a more natural look.
3. Vintage Varsity
Vintage Varsity was inspired by your “cool” uncle’s traditional iron-on letterman jacket from high school. When you add some fuzzy felt textures to the mix, you’ve got yourself a perfect duo! Make a retro-slogan t-shirt by striking the fill and adding a stroke with this highly legible and elegantly simple sans serif font.
Stylish Serif and Script Fonts for Band T-Shirt Designs
If your band is like most, you are always looking for ways to spread the word and connect with new fans. One great way to do this is by using different display fonts on your t-shirts. Not only does it help set you apart from the other bands out there, but it can also show off your personality. Here are some other fonts that’ll help you sell t-shirts and build awareness of your band.
4. Karson Blackletter
Karson Blackletter is a typeface that draws inspiration from streetwear and street style, merchandise design, graffiti, and vintage art. It’s a visually appealing font that works especially well for designing t-shirts and other merch for metal or rock and roll bands.
5. California Style
California Style was designed as a dual-purpose font with a lovely mix of alternate glyphs and ornament swash. The gothic nature of this script font makes it a nice fit for quirky t-shirt designs for rock or punk groups.
6. Seraph
Seraph is a tall display type font family that comes in two styles: normal and rough. Its intense, serious nature makes it best for bands that want to turn heads and leave a lasting impression in their t-shirt designs.
Bold Fonts for College T-Shirt Designs
Do you have a favorite college t-shirt? Or maybe one that you haven’t worn in a while and it’s just been collecting dust in your closet? College t-shirts bring back memories of a time on campus. If you’re looking to remake them as a new addition to your wardrobe, or if you’re just feeling nostalgic, check out some of these unique fonts for t-shirts:
7. College
College is a typeface family that likes hanging out together! Combine them in any way you want and color them however you like. Have some fun with your designs and add some collegiate spirit to them.
8. Underdog
Underdog is a typeface inspired by the aesthetic of vintage sports. It’s an amazing example of a bold serif font that immediately demands attention, with its chunky, impactful lettering sure to stand out on any t-shirt design.
9. College Dropout
College Dropout is a hand-drawn, organic, and bold font that evokes some of those less-than-academic times from high school.
Attractive and Sans Serif Fonts for Family Reunion T-Shirt Designs
If you’re attending a family reunion this year, you’ll want to make sure that you have the perfect t-shirt font. We’ve gathered some of the best fonts for you to use, whether you’re looking for something fun and whimsical, or classic and timeless.
10. Greycliff CF
Greycliff CF is a flexible font family that is rugged, hearty, and warm. In a variety of applications, strong capitals and a smooth, open lowercase are successful. The basic robustness of the geometric, near-monoline construction is balanced by softened edges and vivid shapes.
11. Venti CF
Venti CF is a geometric typeface family with a friendly, inviting personality. Venti’s minor faults, flowing lines, and human tone make it ideal for headlines, quotes, and short text, making it inviting and adaptable. It’s an especially nice fit for minimalist designs.
12. Kindred
Kindred is a hand-lettered, organic sans serif typeface. It has a warm, natural vibe, inspired by hand lettering art, with many interlocking letters and swashes that give it a hand-drawn vibe. To give it an organic and welcoming feel, the corners are slightly softened.
Cute and Playful T-Shirt Fonts for Kids’ T-Shirt Design
When designing a kid’s t-shirt, you want to focus on positivity and fun. It’s refreshing to see positive quotes or sayings in a kid’s t-shirt and these fonts are perfect for your little ones:
13. Little Pea
Little Pea is a sweet handwritten typeface, made up of lowercase letters, that would look great on comic books, greeting cards, toys, posters, baby apparel, picture books, and anything else that needs a little bit of fun!
14. Saltwater Taffy
A colorful and cheerful hand-drawn typeface with adaptable letters that look well in ALL CAPS or sentence case. It’s one of the best bold fonts to use on kids’ clothing, babywear, and other gear for little ones.
15. Sweet apricot
Sweet apricot is ideal for books, greeting cards, logos, posters, and anything else that demands a cheerful appearance!
Decorative Fonts for Couples T-Shirt Designs
Couples who want to show off their love and sense of humor can do so with a couples t-shirt. For these, you may want to consider using the same font for both of your shirts. This will make them look more coordinated and give your photos that extra bit of polish.
16. Bastille
Bastille is a magnificent modern font pair that’s perfect for logos, posters, wedding invites, blog articles, social media, and more! The font offers over 60 ligatures and variations for each letter to make everything look completely hand-done. There are swashes at the start and end of each lowercase letter to give your main words a little more flair.
17. Western Lake – Brewski
Brewski is a display serif font with a hand-drawn Vintage style and a bit of ornament that gives it a stylish look. With its decorative details and modern simplicity, it’s ideal for creating retro logos, headlines, or packaging, and is suitable for vintage designs, t-shirts, logos, labels, posters, and other similar projects.
18. SUMMER CLASICO
Inspired by current graphic design trends, which appear to be slipping back into the past on a regular basis, this eye-catching yet simple font offers an old-school typeface to reclaim its place in your design arsenal.
Why Are T-Shirt Fonts Important?
We’ve seen some amazing examples of script fonts, sans serif fonts, and serif fonts for t-shirt design. But why does font matter so much? You might be wondering what impact font choices truly have on custom t-shirt designs.
The simple answer is that, if text is any part of your t-shirt design, then the font style will have a huge role in the overall mood, look, and appeal of that shirt.
The right font can elevate any design idea. Bold fonts make shirts more eye-catching or draw attention to catchy slogans, for example. A fun font or playful font, meanwhile, can make a t-shirt (especially a kids’ shirt) look cuter and sweeter.
Here are just a few more benefits that popular t-shirt fonts provide:
- They can establish a brand’s identity
- They set the mood for a t-shirt design
- They elevate other elements of the design
- They make t-shirt text easier to read
In short, t-shirt fonts truly impact the quality and attractiveness of custom t-shirt designs. And that’s why it’s so important to pick the best font for every occasion. A low-quality, illegible, or awkward font may ruin a t-shirt’s look, but the best t-shirt fonts are essential ingredients in top t-shirt designs.
Tips for Choosing Fonts for T-Shirt Designs
When designing a t-shirt, it’s important to follow certain rules so that everyone can clearly read your message. The font that you use can be just as important as the actual words that you write for your shirt’s design. You should consider several things when searching for a font:
- Make sure that the font is legible. It’s important to choose a font that is easy to read from a distance.
- Consider the tone of your message. Not all font categories are created equal. Some fonts convey a playful, fun feeling while others have a more serious tone. Choose the right font that best suits your message, whether that be an elegant font for vintage charm, some of the more playful fonts for creating contrast with a more serious design, or any of the gothic fonts for Halloween designs.
- Pay attention to the layout of your text. Just as with any other design project, you want to make sure that your text is properly arranged on the shirt. This will help look polished and professional.
- Experiment with different colors and styles. You may want to use a unique text color or font style to create some contrast against your shirt’s main color or image. This will give you the opportunity to show off your creativity and personality.
- Pay attention to the size of the font. Use a large font if you’re hoping for something that is easy to read, while using a smaller format if you want people’s eyes to be drawn more towards the picture on your shirt than the actual words used in the design.
- Consider where people will see your shirt design. If you’re hoping for an outdoor event where there might be some sun glare, you’ll want a thinner font so it can still be easily read in these conditions.
- More often than not, it’s better to pick a single perfect font for your t-shirt design. If you wish to use several different styles of fonts together, stick to two or three at most. Too many fonts can clash and ruin the aesthetic of your t-shirts.
- If you use more than one font, opt for fonts with similar forms and X-heights for consistency. Try organizing your fonts into a visual hierarchy, too, with the more decorative or bold font as your “headliner” and simple fonts for the rest of the text.
- If you’re not sure which is the best font to use, try A/B testing. Create designs or mockups of your t-shirts with a mix of bold fonts, decorative fonts, handwritten fonts, and free fonts you can find online. Then, show them to your prospective customers to collect feedback and see which one has the best response.
As you can see, there are many different fonts that you can choose from when designing your custom t-shirts. Just make sure that you select the best font for the job and that your message is clear.
With these tips in mind, you’re sure to create a shirt that will be loved by all! Sign up here to get started on your next great project!
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